She who Gives and Takes
by Sensha-Do
Summary: A short horror tale mixing my love of Lovecraft and my love of Yukari. A kid goes looking for his lost sister and finds someone else entirely.


"Amy! Amy, where are you? Amy!"

As Matt walked down the sidewalk, he shouted for his sister. She'd been lost before, of course…just not for this long. It had been a little over an hour since he'd looked up from his homework to check on her, only to find her gone. And if she was still gone when his mom got back from her work cleaning houses…

_Gotta find her_.

Last time, she'd wandered down to the neighbor lady's condo because she wanted to play with the woman's cats. Matt walked on, calling all the way.

It had taken half an hour to get to Mrs. Danvers' house. The sun was getting low in the sky, the odd orange of twilight beginning to bleed into the sky. He walked up the steps, breathing a little heavily from the walk, and rang the bell.

"Ha…Have you seen my sister?" Matt asked when the door was opened, his voice edgy with worry. It was getting dark quickly.

The old lady's face assumed a vaguely concerned look. "Oh, did she run off again? I saw her go by here a little while ago, but I didn't realize she wasn't supposed to be…" Mrs. Danvers trailed off. Matt could smell the odor of cat very distinctly as it wafted out the door. He frowned.

_Where the hell did she think she was going? _Matt thought. "Did you see which way she was walking, Mrs. Danvers?"

"Ah…hmm. I believe she was heading that way." She pointed down the street, in the opposite direction of the apartment. Matt groaned internally.

"Well, thanks. I gotta go get her now. Uh…bye." He hopped down the steps and kept going down the sidewalk, now half jogging. Matt hadn't been this far down the street alone before. As he jogged, the buildings got shabbier, and there were less and less people on the sidewalk.

And no sign of his sister.

And it was still getting darker.

The sun was very low now, an orange-red eye peeking halfway over the buildings lining the narrow street. Matt stopped, out of breath. As he stood there, hands on his knees, he despaired. _I'm very far from home now. And it's nearly dark. And it's cold. I'll never find her like this. I should go home, wait for mom, and ask her what to do. This…this is bad. _He stood up straight again, and began to turn around. As he spun, he noticed an old man in a chair on the porch of a nearby house, sitting back and watching the sun set. _I…I really should ask him. Even if it is cold. Even if he looks creepy out here all alone with his wrinkly face and his saggy arms and that tube up his nose-ugh. Stop it. _Matt steeled himself. He walked over to the porch, and, positioning himself in front of the oldster. "Ex-Excuse me, sir…um…have you seen a…um, a young girl around here? About this high? With short, dark hair and a yellow shirt? She's my sister, and…uh…"

The man leaned forward, his faced coming into the dim light of the sunset. His eyes were vacant and unfocussed. His slow motion was jerkily arrested by the cannula in his nose, and, keeping his blank face pointed at the sky, he pointed across the street. "She…She's over there."

The man's spotty finger was aimed directly at a narrow alley between two buildings across the street.

_Oh, God. I don't want to go in there. And this guy doesn't look all there. And it's still dark and cold._ The wind was picking up. In torn jeans and a cheap t-shirt, Matt felt nearly naked. _But it's my only chance. I've got to do it._

"Er…thanks." The man didn't move. Matt crossed the street. The orange light of sunset was gone. All that was left was the dim light of dusk. It was darkest purple, fading into black.

But then, as he looked down the mouth of the alley, he saw something strange, for just a second. There had been a person there at the place where the alley bent. A tall woman, dressed in an archaic gown of fine pale silk. She had been there for just a moment before she twirled around the corner in a swirl of cloth.

She had been looking at him, with a small smile on her face.

"Wait!" She had to know something about where Amy was. He broke into a run down the alley. The lane took several odd twists and turns, the high brick walls on either side blocking out all but a thin stripe of the purple-tinged sky. He came around a final corner, and stopped.

The woman was sitting there on an antique love-seat. There was a little table and second chair across from her, the finely carved furniture looking entirely wrong sitting on the wet asphalt. She wore a long, conservatively-cut ruffled dress, its pale cream color in sharp contrast with the apron-like purple garment she wore over the dress's front. Her long, blond hair framed a pale, beautiful, fine-featured face that seemed ageless, like a black-and-white photo of a classical actress. Her lips were still curved up in that small, cryptic smile.

Matt had a brief moment of mental lockup. "Wha…whaa…?"

The woman held a heretofore-unseen purple fan up to cover her mouth, long fingers flicking it open with ease. "Why, hello," she spoke, her voice mature and carefully modulated.

_Focus. This is a big city. Weirdoes everywhere. Just ignore it. __**Focus.**_ "Um, I'm looking for my s-sister. About this high, dark hair, uhh…yellow shirt, er…?

"Oh, I may have seen her. Yes, maybe. But that's such a_ boooring_ subject, isn't it? I can tell you're curious about me. It's right there on your face. We'll talk about your sister after you ask your questions, yes?" Holding the fan up again, the woman giggled, the gesture surprisingly girlish in contrast to her dress and bearing. She gestured to the old-looking overstuffed armchair sitting on the opposite side of the table from her.

Matt sat. _Just humor her, _he told himself. _This is your only chance._

"Ah, it's nice to have someone new to talk to," the woman told him, toying with one of the small red ribbons in her hair. "Do ask away."

_She's still smiling. This is too weird. _"So, er…who are you?"

"Hee hee." She giggled again. "I've been called many names in many languages by many different people," she reminisced, still covering her mouth as she spoke, "and I've forgotten even more names than I remember. Hmmm…" the woman said from behind her fan. "Ah. These are some of my favorites. The Lady in Violet. Gap Woman. Cartographess. The Smuggler of Souls. The Faraway Bride. Travels-by-night."

_What the hell? And that fan… _ "Er, alright…but, my sist-"

"There are more," she interrupted. Her mouth was hidden, but Matt could tell the woman was smiling behind the ever-present fan. "Hole-hag. Dread Voyager. The Whisperer in Darkness. The Gatherer and Finisher. She who Gives and Takes. _Nyarlathotep_."

Somehow, Matt sensed that smile getting wider and wider.

"So, you said you'd seen my-"

"There is one more thing you want to ask. I know. I _always_ know." Her dark eyes were locked on his.

_Fine, fine, just do it so you can get out of here._ "Okay…why do you always hold that fan in front of your face?"

"Why," she said happily from behind the offending object, "It's because my smile is too beautiful. It always distracts those whom I'm speaking with. And there's nothing I abhor more than a ruined conversation."

_She's a whacko._

"But you look like a sturdy boy, strong of arm and quick of mind. I'm sure you wouldn't be distracted. Why don't we make a deal? I'll show you my smile, and then I'll tell you where your sister went, alright?"

_An utter, raving, insane lunatic. _"Erm, okay. Go ahead, I guess."

"Oh, wonderful." Her tone was altogether too satisfied.

She lowered the fan. Matt gulped.

The woman smiled.

Matt tried to scream, but involuntarily choked it out. All his instincts were driving him to get away from _that_, and he backed up so quickly he fell back on his rear. Still he scrabbled wildly backwards until he was backed up against the wall, face locked into the instinctual fear-grimace wired into human instinct since before humanity had existed. And all this time, his eyes had been unable to turn away from the woman's…the thing's…from _that's _smile.

The sheer wrongness was quickly apparent. The corners of her grin stretched up and up and up and too, _too_ far, all the way up to her ears and beyond, as did the teeth inside it. And the teeth

The _teeth_

Long, needle-like, and dark purple they were, glossy like oiled iron, the color of poison, of oil, of twilight as a sun set for the final time. And so many, many, many of them, rows upon rows, more than could possibly be physically contained in that head, more that could fit in a million heads, and oh, oh oh oh

oh

the _eyes_

_the __**eyes**_

The teeth were studded with eyes, billions of them, infinitesimally small, but somehow each and every one was distinct and clear. Some glared, some wept, some gazed lazily, but none blinked.

And all were focused on him.

And Matt looked at them too, how could he not? And as he stared into those dark orbs, he knew. And he _**saw.**_

He saw that this being, this woman, this _thing_ was old beyond age. It had lived around stars so deep and far into the void that their light decayed and died before it reached the feeble telescopes of earth. It had raised cities of continent-swallowing size and scope, Cyclopean architecture of size incomprehensible and geometry impossible to beings born into three spatial dimensions. Yes, it had raised cities, and it had torn them down, reducing great works to fallow ground in an instant. And it had laughed. It had helped races grow and evolve into great empires, and, with a nudge here and a whisper there moved them to damnation. It had watched billions of its children whom it had raised from the muck die disgracefully, clawing at each other's throats in rage and hunger, and been pleased. And still, it laughed. It had scoured entire worlds and systems and galaxies clean of life at the whims of blind, gibbering gods whom it ridiculed even as it served. It had travelled the farthest, darkest reaches of space, the dim voids, the lonely, dank places where the black stars hang and the unseen spheres align in madness. And it had passed the turbid light of Aldebaran, swung through the cold hateful lights of the Hyades, and it had arrived here. And the whole time, it had laughed, it had chuckled, it had giggled and guffawed and positively _**howled**_ with glee. And while it had made the Sol system its haunt since before the Earth had formed, that had been a long journey, a journey that would drive a lesser being mad a million times over. And so, it was still hungry.

_Very_ hungry.

Matt could see it in the eyes.

Yes, it was hungry, and it was looking at him.

That knowledge hung in the center of his twisted, torqued mind, hung there like a mauled corpse from a length of cruel baling wire, dripping blood slowly into a congealing puddle on the floor. A corpse, hanging upside-down from its ankle like a side of meat, ready to be butchered and cooked and _consumed_. And the corpse was spinning slowly, and its face came into view and its face was-

"Young man."

The woman had gotten up. She paced towards him.

"I suppose I was wrong about you being strong enough, eh? Well, to put it crudely, 'all's well that ends well.'"

She loomed over him.

"Goodbye, then. I did so enjoy our talk."

She reached for him.

_no_

* * *

"Mistress! You're home!"

"I certainly am."

"Was your trip fun?"

"Oh my, yes. I got everything I needed."

"When should we have dinner?"

"Not for a while, I think. I'm full, at least for the moment."


End file.
